Disney+ is no longer a safe space after it added Hulu content

Part of this is user error. The Disney+ app has two ways of filtering out adult content for kids, and if a parent doesn’t use either option, well, that’s on them.

Sort of.

Until recently, there weren’t any R-rated movies on the Disney+ app. (“Deadpool” and “Logan” were added in 2022.) Many families never bothered fiddling with the age-rating options because all Disney content — even the PG-13 fare like “Hamilton” or Marvel movies — felt reasonably family-friendly and high-quality.

A Disney+ user profile can still be set to Junior Mode, which will call up a collection of shows and movies for little kids. It has a slightly different, easier-to-navigate interface. The content is aimed at the youngest audience, with shows like “Bluey” and “Muppet Babies” and only G-rated movies.

However, most of the more recent Disney movies, like “Encanto,” “Inside Out,” and “Moana,” are rated PG, which excludes them from Junior Mode. For a lot of families (including mine, which has an Elsa-obsessed 4-year-old), no “Frozen” is a dealbreaker. Junior Mode doesn’t fit our needs.

Netflix has a better way of handling this: Parents can customize the content ratings for kids profiles, allowing up to PG and TV-PG content.

Additionally, Netflix allows you to block certain titles from a kids account — because either you deem it inappropriate for your child or you’re just sick of watching it 20 times. You can’t block by title on the Disney+ app.

Then there are the YouTube imports on Hulu that are now also on Disney+.

Hulu brings over a handful of shows that were developed out of popular YouTube Kids channels, like “Love, Diana” and “Blippi,” which are aimed at toddlers and preschool kids, though some parents may raise an eyebrow: The man who created and played the character Blippi also made viral gross-out videos as Steezy Grossman and went viral for a video where he pooped on his nude friend to the “Harlem Shake” meme. There are also shows about gaming and Roblox from YouTube creators.

Recently, Business Insider reported that Disney+ was losing the battle with YouTube for Gen Alpha’s attention. Bringing these YouTube-native shows to the Disney+ app might hold their attention more.

But for a parent who wants to avoid YouTube or Roblox content for their kid, Disney is no longer a safe place.

Ultimately, parents and caregivers are in charge of what their kids watch, and Disney has provided some tools to adjust content ratings. But for some parents, until very recently, Disney+ was something they could put on and not worry about. Now they say they feel like the rug has been pulled out from under them.

“It’s been a place where I feel comfortable letting my kid steer,” Emily Johnson, the parent of a 4-year-old, told Business Insider. “Sure, it might not be model parenting, but my kid enjoys the sense of control being able to bop from ‘Bluey’ to ‘Spidey Friends.’ Now I can’t even find my episodes easily. The content is all bifurcated, and, in my opinion, it’s watering down the Disney brand.”